9 Great Funds That Invest in Bargain-Priced Stocks

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With go-go growth stocks posting gaga returns in recent years, it’s easy to forget that value stocks—slower-growing companies with shares that are cheap in relation to profits and other key measures—have prevailed over the long term.

Now, however, the bull market is approaching its seventh birthday, and volatility is on the rise. So far this year, Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has been nearly twice as volatile as it was in 2014. And those high-flying, high-growth stocks? Some have experienced stomach-churning dives: Valeant Pharmaceuticals (symbol VRX), the acquisitive drug company, has dropped 71% since it peaked in August. And Micron Technology (MU) has sunk 51% over the past 11 months.

It may be time to seek some shelter in value stocks and the funds that invest in them. This corner of the market hasn’t gotten much love lately, which only makes it more attractive in our eyes. Over the past 12 months, the S&P 500 Growth index, which includes the faster-growing, more highly valued companies in the S&P 500, gained 4.8%, while the S&P 500 Value index, which holds the cheaper names in the S&P 500, lost 2.5%. The S&P 500 itself returned 1.3%.

To hone our list of good value funds, we focused on no-load offerings with below-average expense ratios, consistently above-average performance and below-average volatility relative to their peer group. Click forward for a look at our favorites.

Disclaimer

All returns are as of November 13; three- and five-year returns are annualized.

Nellie S. Huang
Senior Associate Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance

Nellie joined Kiplinger in August 2011 after a seven-year stint in Hong Kong. There, she worked for the Wall Street Journal Asia, where as lifestyle editor, she launched and edited Scene Asia, an online guide to food, wine, entertainment and the arts in Asia. Prior to that, she was an editor at Weekend Journal, the Friday lifestyle section of the Wall Street Journal Asia. Kiplinger isn't Nellie's first foray into personal finance: She has also worked at SmartMoney (rising from fact-checker to senior writer), and she was a senior editor at Money.